I had no idea, when I took a job as a nurse manager of an inpatient unit at a rural hospital that's 4 hours away from the nearest large city, that a huge portion of my job stress would come from the... Read More

Feb 11

SoCa is definitely saturated. I saw posts on FB for the county I live in offering $10 less than I made in 1999 for experienced RNs. They are jumping all over it, I leave FB comments to myself.
Half the hospitals in L.A. are Kaiser and they just use 'perpetual travelers' rather than pay benefits.

Feb 11

It varies by location and even hospital to hospital (no one wants to work at a place known to be a bad place to work) but I do not believe there is a national nurse shortage at this time. That said, there are definitely "shortages" within most hospitals in the sense that their nurseatient ratios are too high, but that has nothing to do with the amount of nurses available (at least not directly).

Feb 11

Also, some advice to nurses looking for a job: If your main reason for switching jobs is salary, make sure you are taking into account living expenses. Even though your salary would be hire if you move to a particular city/state, you might be making less after you factor in higher taxes and all the cost of living expenses.

I have seen job postings in local hospitals here in SoCal for RN positions (A BUNCH OF THEM) but wanting 3+ years & vast experience. I wonder why they don't fill. Seems like they want a seasoned nurse for pennies and will hold out until they get someone. It seems that way.

I'm in your area, and from what I've observed, those positions do fill. People also move around a lot, though. Their needs change, and new positions are always opening up.
As an employer, it makes more sense to hire an experienced nurse that can hit the ground running. Experienced nurses and new grads will often move on quickly, but one costs more money and requires more effort to get trained and functional.

As an employer, it makes more sense to hire an experienced nurse that can hit the ground running. Experienced nurses and new grads will often move on quickly, but one costs more money and requires more effort to get trained and functional.

Wholeheartedly agree. In our case, experienced nurses typically don't drop out of the sky, so we must invest in our new grads or we would have no nursing workforce at all.

No no no!! I feel like nobody's listening to what I'm saying. They're just repeating their own version of what they believe to be true.

Spanked, I'm not saying what you're describing never happens. But that is simply not the reality in many places.

You say facilities would rather pay OT to staff than hire more nurses. Hire more nurses from WHERE?? Where are these nurses we're CHOOSING not to hire because we'd rather work our current staff until they're sick, exhausted, or burnt to a crisp?

This is what I'm trying to tell you - there ARE no nurses applying for these jobs because there are no nurses. Every new grad is snatched up, but there are not enough to take the place of those who are retiring or moving out of the community.

Oregon has strict staffing laws. We cannot compel people to work OT. And travelers are VERY expensive. There is no incentive to the department or the facility to NOT hire permanent nurses to fill open positions.
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What part of Oregon? Forests near by? I'd be temped to relocate if it was one of the green/forest covered areas of Oregon!

Feb 12

Yes, we are a bona fide rainforest.

Feb 12

If you were hiring LPN, I'd move yesterday. I would love to live in a rainforest.

Feb 13

We have the same problem at my hospital. We have enough nurses for core staffing needs, but when flu season hits and staff end up being out sick, we're short. We've been floating nurses from other units to cover our needs, and a few nurses like myself sign up for extra shifts, but sometimes that's not even enough.

My hospital will happily hire nurses who don't have their BSN (without requiring them to sign a contract saying they will get theirs within a specified amount of time) but they're not very good at "reaching out" to nearby nursing schools. My advice is look at community hospitals first - they're likely understaffed and although they may pay less than bigger hospitals in metropolitan areas, they have just as many opportunities for growth and promotion.

Wholeheartedly agree. In our case, experienced nurses typically don't drop out of the sky, so we must invest in our new grads or we would have no nursing workforce at all.

This thread should be mandatory reading for nursing students. I work at a teaching hospital in about as close to a metropolitan area as WV has. The nursing shortage is real, here, too. We aren't small, and not exactly rural, but the competition for new hires seems pretty intense. To a new grad, that means lots of opportunities to gain experience and develop skills which, with apologies to the OP, will vastly improve your marketability after a few years. And you might just find the place you want to retire from.